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EMERY
I find Adrik in his office.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, gesturing to the window, through which I can see a clustered wall of trees as thick as three of me. “Who’d you have to kill to get these views?”
“The previous owners.”
I freeze in the doorway. Anyone else and I’d laugh. Haha, hilarious. But Adrik? Adrik might mean it.
Then he looks up from the drink in front of him. I catch his smirk.
“You’re joking,” I breathe in relief.
“It’s been known to happen on occasion.” He leans back in his chair, watching me. “I had the house built from the ground up. I bought the property legally, too. But I did use a pseudonym.”
I shrug. “You wanted your privacy.”
He nods. “Yasha fucked that plan to hell, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if Stefan and some of the guys showed up with overnight bags for a sleepover.”
I laugh, and Adrik raises a brow. “Something funny?”
“Sorry. But the thought of you having a sleepover… Even as a kid, I can’t quite imagine it.”
Any sign of humor on his face disappears at once. “Nothing to imagine. My life didn’t allow for trivial things like that.”
I bite my lip and lean against the door frame. “Your dad was here.”
“Observant.”
“Don’t be an ass. You know what I’m asking,” I say softly. “How did it go?”
Adrik holds up his glass in response. There are at least two fingers of whiskey in there. I have no idea how full it was to start.
“Ah,” I say. “Not well, then.”
“Even more observant than I realized,” he drawls. “Then again, you probably could have guessed as much. Neither of us got the cuddly sitcom fathers, did we?”
“No, I guess not.” More words sit on the end of my tongue, but I’m hesitant to bring them up. I’ve spent so long repressing them that doing anything else feels foreign, awkward.
But after a few seconds, I decide anything is better than the strained silence.
“And my dad’s dead now, so I guess that bridge will never be mended.”
Adrik’s attention snaps up to me. His dark brows are knit together. “You didn’t say anything.”
“I kind of forgot,” I admit with a shrug. “Isn’t that horrible? Malcolm Waters told me he killed him.”
Adrik clenches his jaw. “Fucking Waters. I should’ve killed him sooner.”
“My dad was killed and then his killer tried to kill me, and I just… forgot.” I shake my head. “That’s not normal.”
“It’s been a busy couple days.”
"I guess," I say. I’m obviously not convinced.
Adrik stands up and walks around his desk. For a second, I imagine him closing the distance between us and wrapping me in his arms. I imagine us falling into our shared grief together, holding one another and navigating our way through it hand in hand.
But he stops a few feet away and leans against his desk. "You don’t owe him anything, Emery. Not even your grief.”
“But… he was my dad. I should feel something, shouldn’t I?” I drop down into the chair in front of him, suddenly exhausted. From the last few days, the last few months, my entire life—I’m not quite sure. “But until I saw your dad in the kitchen, I hadn’t even thought of mine. Not once since Malcolm told me.”
“I felt the same way about Sofia.”
“You weren’t upset when she died?” I ask.
“I was… shocked,” he murmurs. “But she betrayed me. I wasn’t sad at all that she was gone. If anything, it was one less item on my to-do list.”
A slight shiver moves down my spine. I try to suppress it. I know who Adrik is and what he has done. I don’t know why I’m still surprised by his casual brutality when it rears its ugly head.
“But my dad is my blood,” I say, knowing even as I say it that I’m mounting a pretty pitiful argument here. “Family is important to the Bratva, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it mean something?”
“Not when trust is broken,” Adrik replies. “Your father isn’t your father anymore. He hasn’t been for a long time. Not since Isabella.”
“That’s true,” I admit. “That’s when I realized I couldn’t trust him. He saw my rape as little more than bad press for him if it got out. He didn’t even care about me.”
“Because he was a selfish fucking asshole.”
I give him a tight smile. “I don’t think you’re supposed to speak ill of the dead.”
“When the dead are spineless bastards who don’t take care of their own children, I’ll say whatever the fuck I want.”
I grin sheepishly. Adrik has a way with words sometimes. “Fair enough.”
Adrik frowns for a moment and then sighs. “But I guess that’s something else you can blame Yasha for. What he did to your family.”
“In that way and that way only, maybe I should thank him.” Then I wrinkle my nose. “Okay, never mind. I’ll never thank him. But you know what I mean.”
He nods. “It’s better to know the truth and suffer the consequences than live in the lie.”
“I know you’re right, but…”
“You’d rather be lied to?”
I shake my head. “It isn’t that. I want the truth. But sometimes, it would be nice to pretend things were easy. You know? Simple. Normal.”
“Boring, you mean.”
“Simple doesn’t always mean boring.”
“Agree to disagree.”
I let loose a weary sigh. As always, arguing with Adrik is about as useful as slamming my head repeatedly into a brick wall. Feels about that good, too.
“Speaking of boring, what’s got you holed up in your office again?” I ask. “You work too much.”
“My job never ends,” he says.
“Your boss pushes you too hard.”
He snorts. “I am the boss.”
“Always, though?” I ask. “Do you ever stop being the boss, even for just a second?”
Adrik tilts his head to the side and looks at me through hooded eyes. Contemplating something, though God knows I don’t have the faintest idea what that something might be.
Then he uncrosses his arms and saunters over the remaining distance between us. Reaching down, he cups his fingers under my chin and tilts my face up into his. His touch is feather-light, but it’s all I can sense, all I’m aware of.
As always, I’m his in an instant.
“No,” he answers quietly. “I am what I am every moment of my life. It’s all I’ve ever been. It’s all I ever will be. So if you don’t like that, Emery… then run.”
I’m quiet for a long few moments. No sound but the shaky inhale and exhale of my suddenly frantic breath.
Then: “I’m not going anywhere.”
I rise slowly. I’m still looking up at him, but at least I’m on two feet now, where I feel like I have a slim chance of holding my own against my husband.
I want him to see that it doesn’t have to be this way. He thinks he has to be what he was molded into all the time.
But I’ve seen past that, seen beneath it. I know there’s a human in there. I know he’s capable of love.
“Then boss me,” I whisper. I reach down to stroke his hardness through his pants. “Tell me what you want. We have time. The kids are busy.”
“Kids?” Adrik asks. “We have multiple now?”
